partnership with the timberland managers. The foresters found someone to plant the trees well, and the forestworkers founded a fledgling industry that allowed their very special kind of management philosophy to define itself and prosper. By their competition with contractor crews, they raised the standards of the whole reforestation industry, bringing it to new levels of sophistication, professionalism and environmental commitment. These early forestworker crews were usually partnerships, not true cooperatives. Often a group of neighbors and friends would band together, pool their resources, and bid On government contracts. The lowest bidder was, by law, awarded the contract. As the partnerships gained experience, they bid and won more contracts. And as they became more adept at their own brand of democratic self-rule, some of those forestworkers were ready for the economic stability and political clout of a large company, a strong worker-owned cooperative, comprised of almost autonomous work crews. with one of his characteristically laidThe Gravy Days I n Eugene, it was the Hoedads that decided to expand, and who, in 1973, issued a general public call for new workers. The recruitment drive brought in 60 new members, some of whom had never planted a tree and some experienced workers who joined along with their whole crew. New crews selected their own zippy names, including Thumb, Mud Sharks, Cheap Thrills, and Natural Wonders. By 1974, the more than 100 Hoedads had established their cooperative. Within three years they were grossing two million dollars per year and were operating 13 crews in forests throughout the West. It was the boom time, the “gravy” days for the reforestation industry, when making more than $100 a day treeplanting was commonplace. J.D. Ogden, current Hoedad president, was in the late 1970s their corporate treasurer. He remembers those days back, eyes-partly-closed smiles: “Our biggest problem in those days was dealing with our surplus.” The Hoedads solved that problem by loaning or donating money to a large number of progressive causes or businesses sharing a similar philosophy. Eugene’s community- owned WOW Hall, the feminist worker- owned whole foods distributor Star- flower, Cascadian Farms in Washington, and Zoo Zoos, a local natural foods restaurant, are among the surviving beneficiaries. Starflower Treasurer Jain Elliott, whose business has borrowed (and repaid) a great deal of money over the years, in $10,000 to $30,000 chunks, states that, “Hoedads are still finding ways to lend us money, even though their cash is tight. I’m impressed that cooperation among co-ops is still important to them.” And commitments were made to continue bringing untrained men and women into woodswork. Female forestworkers were virtually unknown until the Hoedads established the goal that at least one- third of their workers would be women — a goal that was met or exceeded every EVEN HOEDADS GET THE BLUES year until 1983. The Hoedads floundered in an attempt to create an autonomous Spanish-lan- guage crew within their own structure. These workers, some of whom were illegals, found it hard to believe the barebreasted women working a job near theirs were members of the same organization. Differing expectations, miscommunication, and a number of cultural and language difficulties made the experiment a short-lived one. The Hoedads were also establishing industry standards for jobplace exposure to toxic chemicals. Their first fight was against Thiram, a deer repellant applied to the seedlings. After a long day of work with the contaminated seedlings, transplanters often found themselves getting sick following an after-work beer. An investigation revealed that Thiram was chemically very similar to Anabuse, the drug given alcoholics that induces vomiting and nausea if mixed with alcohol. Their campaign — based on that undeniably All-American right to drink a beer after a hard day’s work — was successful and Thiram was banned. Their next fight was against herbicides, the chemical weedkillers commonly used to kill bushes that foresters thought were competing with trees. Hoedads feared that the chemicals in their air and drinking water were physically harmful, and blamed the instances of nausea and other ailments which occurred while working in or near sprayed areas on their exposure. In 1975, the co-op contributed money to Citizens Against Toxic Sprays, in the first Oregon case that challenged a public agency’s use of herbicides in forestland. The president of Hoedads also testified in the case, presenting the idea of a manual alternative to herbicides — employing people to cut brush with chainsaws. Hoedads have continued their commitment to pesticide reform, persuading the Forest Service to test manual alternatives and helped develop other nonchemical methods of brush control (thus developing a new category of forest work that still offers employment opportunities throughout the Northwest). Groundwork Inc., a Hoedad offshoot, was formed in 1978 to test agency claims about the need for brush control. Hoedads also helped establish the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP), the nationally known pesticide reform group based in Eugene; and two of its members, Fred Miller and Norma Grier, became the first and current directors of the organization. As forestworker cooperatives throughout the Northwest grew and multiplied during the 1970s, the Hoedads remained the largest, most well known and influential. In its heyday, Eugene Central kept track of crews working throughout the entire region, including Alaska and Montana. Hundreds of thousands of acres were planted and, due to the strenuous work, and resultant high turnover, more than a thousand workers passed through the co-op’s ranks. Local and national media attention was drawn to the group because of its increasing economic and political significance and the outspoken and colorful individuals which comprised its membership. The successful battle against Thiram, the election of Jerry Rust (a co-founder of Hoedads) as a Lane County Commissioner, and their easy access to local and national political fi17
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